Romania will need ten years to adopt the euro if the GDP per capita grows at the same pace, according to an analysis of the Austrian group Erste.

Croatia is the only country in Central and Eastern Europe that considers adopting the euro in the near future.

Adopting the euro has been a “changing target” in Romania in the last ten years and “has never been approached seriously”, according to Erste.

“Without a clear agenda, officials  have generally been pleased to note that Romania needs to recover the gap with the euro in terms of per capita GDP and that greater efforts are needed to increase productivity,” the Erste analysis shows.

Romania’s GDP per capita, expressed in terms of purchasing power parity, has reached 55.5% of the one in the euro area, up from 48.2% five years ago.

"If it continues to advance at 1.5 percentage points annually and considering the convergence point at 70%, Romania will need about 10 years to join the eurozone,” according to Erste.

editor@romania-insider.com